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After all, it won't be BBC TV on your phone

We were looking forward to seeing BBC favourites like Dell-boy and East Enders on third generation phones. It turns out that some important people were jumping to conclusions ...

The exciting news that third generation phones would be carrying BBC TV "productions" turns out to have been rather less exciting than it sounded. Actually, the true story is rather more surprising.

It started last week when Hutchison 3G - one of the lucky winners of a 3G licence in last year's Alice in Wonderland bidding war - announced that it had awarded BBC Technology "a contract to manage the production of its audio-visual content.

Usually reliable sources said this was a content deal. Well, it is, sort of.

As any weatherman will tell you, information from "reliable" or "expert sources" is not always a guarantee that something would happen. Sometimes, even when you press your ear until it feels the hot breath from the horse's mouth, things will go awry.

Consider the word "production". To a factory manager, it might mean a left threaded grunzel. To a film or television company it might mean putting together the various elements to create a drama. To a techie, it might simply mean writing software to turn content from format a) to b).

Take the quote: "The content will be accessible through Hutchison 3G's next-generation wireless service." This was generally assumed to mean that Hutchison would be licencing BBC content such as FA Cup highlights and Wimbledon and that the word "its" referred to the BBC rather than Hutchison. After all, this is what the BBC does. Right? Actually, the truth is somewhat more prosaic.

Not many people will have heard of BBC Technology. This division was spun off from the BBC last year to provide infrastructure and technical services to third parties on a commercial basis in order to relieve the burden on the licence fee payer. Basically it is there to make a bob or two for the Beeb. What BBCT has been asked to do in this instance is to take content that Hutchison has licenced - not BBC content - and make it UMTS (the technology behind 3G) compliant.

Simply put, the deal is to process and package content such as the Premier League, which Hutchison has already sourced, and turn it out in a form compatible for display on a 3G device.

Hutchison was, originally, the company which launched, and owned, the Orange brand. Other than that, it won't be a name familiar to those who normally frequent the Link or Carphone Warehouse but has the right sort of backing to make it a major player in the emerging 3G market.

Investors in Hutchison include Japan's NTT Docomo and the Dutch outfit KPN Mobile. In fact Hutchison is making a virtue of the fact that it is specialising in 3G "and nothing else". By outsourcing the messy technical bits to BBCT the company has immediately thrust the Beeb's backroom boys into the spotlight as major players in the content packaging business.

According to a BBC spokesperson, "Negotiations over this deal have been ongoing for a number of months as no-one has ever signed a deal like this before." It is unlikely to be the last. 3G services will live or die as much on the slickness of the delivery as well as the quality of the content. No one wants to see a repeat of the WAP fiasco where punters were told to expect the doors of the web thrown open to them via their phone and subsequently were merely invited to peek through the keyhole.

The BBC is taking it all very seriously. Staffing for the BBCT 3G unit underneath the General Manager will consist of a Production Manager, a Technical Operations Manager, a couple of producers and ten of what BBCT chooses to call Interactive Implementers.

As with everyone else though, producing (that word again!) 3G compliant content is new ground. By signing this deal, the Beeb not only finds out how to package up content and get paid for it, it develops invaluable in house expertise for its own content when it decides to make it generally available to the public. It doesn't require the imagination of a Nobel winning author to work out how BBC would be able to turn BBCT's knowledge to its advantage by offering its own content to 3G phones. Obvious candidates would be Sports Highlights and commentary then a whole gamut of services, probably including things like streamed video of the digital channel News 24.

There is a mountain of money riding on 3G and none of the companies lining up at the starting gate is going to flinch at pouring even more money into content delivery and marketing campaigns in the years to come. Meanwhile the BBC is quietly positioning itself not only as suppliers of content but also as the experts in getting that content in the right format to appear on your phone. A smart move. Is this really the Auntie we have come to know and love?